was she up to? he thought. Was she really acting as this Sanna Strandgård’s lawyer without telling the firm? There must have been some sort of misunderstanding. Her judgment couldn’t be that poor.
He grabbed his cell phone and keyed in a number. No reply. He pressed the bridge of his nose with his right index finger and thumb and tried to think straight. As he was walking into the hall to fetch his laptop he tried another number. No reply there either. He felt sweaty and out of breath. He opened up the computer on the table in the living room and started the video again. Assistant Chief Prosecutor Carl von Post was speaking outside The Source of All Our Strength.
“Damn it,” swore Måns, trying to start up the computer and holding his cell phone clamped between his shoulder and his ear at the same time.
His hands felt clumsy and agitated.
Måns found the earpiece and was able to make calls and start up the computer at the same time. Every number rang without anyone picking up the receiver. No doubt the phones had been red hot after the evening news. The other partners were no doubt wondering how the hell one of his tax lawyers could be up there flattening journalists one after the other. He checked his phone and found that he had fifteen messages. Fifteen.
Carl von Post was looking straight at Måns from the television screen and explaining how the investigation was proceeding. It was the usual stuff about how the search was in full swing, door-to-door inquiries, interviewing members of the congregation, looking for the murder weapon. The prosecutor was elegantly dressed in a gray wool coat with matching gloves and scarf.
“Bloody clotheshorse,” commented Måns Wenngren, failing to grasp that von Post was wearing virtually the same as he was.
Finally someone picked up the phone. It was the husband of one of the female partners, and he wasn’t happy. She had remarried the much younger man, who lived well off his successful lawyer wife while he pretended to be studying, or whatever the hell he was supposed to be doing.
He doesn’t need to sound quite so miserable, thought Måns.
When his colleague came on the line the conversation was very short.
“We can meet right away, can’t we?” said Mans crossly. “What do you mean, the middle of the night?”
He looked at his Breitling. Quarter past four.
“Okay, then,” he said. “We’ll meet at seven instead. Early breakfast meeting. We’ll need to try and get hold of the others as well.”
When he had finished the conversation he sent an e-mail to Rebecka Martinsson. She hadn’t answered the phone either. He shut down the computer, and as he stood up he could feel his trousers sticking to his legs. He looked down and discovered the milk he’d spilt all over himself.
“That bloody girl,” he growled as he pulled his trousers off. “That bloody girl.”
And evening came and morning came, the second day
Inspector Anna-Maria Mella is sleeping restlessly in the darkest hour of the night. Clouds cover the sky, and the room is pitch-black. It is as if God himself has cupped His hand over the town, just as a child places his hand over a scuttling insect. No one who has joined the game shall escape.
Anna-Maria tosses her head from side to side to escape the voices and faces from yesterday that have occupied her sleep. The child kicks angrily in her stomach.
In her dream Prosecutor Carl von Post pushes his face toward Sanna Strandgård and tries to force answers from her that she cannot give. He presses her and threatens to interrogate her daughters if she cannot answer. And the more he asks, the more she closes down. In the end she appears to remember nothing.
“What were you doing in the church in the middle of the night? What made you go there? You must remember something, surely? Did you see anyone else there? Do you remember calling the police? Were you angry with your brother?”
Sanna hides her face in her hands.
“I don’t remember. I don’t know. He came to me in the night. Suddenly Viktor was standing by my bed. He looked sad. When he just dissolved I knew something had happened….”
“He dissolved?”
The prosecutor looks as if he doesn’t know whether to laugh or give her a slap.
“Hang on, so you were visited by a ghost and you realized something had happened to your brother?”
Anna-Maria whimpers so much that Robert wakes up. He raises himself on his elbow and